Brian J. Pombo Live

Brian mentions an I Love Marketing Podcast Episode in which Dean Jackson talks about being a focus finder.

show here - https://ilovemarketing.com/focus-finder-take-control-of-your-time-and-improve-productivity/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oqz75bmT130

Transcription

Dean Jackson's focus finder.

Hi I'm Brian Pombo welcome back to Brian J Pombo Live.

Dean Jackson is a very popular very, very smart marketer, and has put out loads of podcasts, both as a host and as a guest I've heard on podcasts before.

He's a really interesting guy.

I've talked about his different ideas here previously, one of his ideas that I haven't touched on is mainly because I haven't taken full advantage of this yet. But I wanted to pass it along because I know it's been helpful to other people.

I'm looking to try it out myself but I'd like to hear what your thoughts are on it if you've had a chance to try his focus finder technique. If you're wanting to know more about what this is, it's, it's the concept that we're always distracted, that we're being pulled in a million different directions, by our email, by the Internet, by the thoughts in our head, all these different things that are constantly pulling at us, keeping us from staying focused.

Now, some people have a natural ability to be able to zoom in or they built up the skill. Depending on how you look at it, they're able to zoom in and fully concentrate on one thing at a time.

In fact, they have some people have the inability to be distracted, and they sometimes get too focused on certain things that are popping Podcast Producer, Sean Douglas is an amazing focuser he can just zoom in on something and just drill down and look at something from a million different directions. He's amazing at that.

On the other hand, I've always struggled with the ability to focus, even the desire to focus is not there as much. And so it's one of those things that it is it is something that even getting myself down to try this focus finding technique.

It's been difficult, but it is something that I'm looking into, and I'm gonna look to put in more effort into doing something like this. I'm not going to go through all the steps of it because he has an excellent podcast of a speech he gave I believe this was a speech he gave live. And it's really, really good.

I want you to go listen to it. It's really short. I've got a link in the description.

If you're watching this on Instagram or someplace that you can't see the link, go to BrianJPombo.com and check out this post in the media section. You can go directly over to it. It's, The Focus Finder.

This was on the I love marketing podcast that Dean Jackson has been hosting with Joe Polish for years and years. So go check that out. Love to hear what you think on the focus finder and we'll talk to you tomorrow.

In the meantime, get out there and let the magic happen.

Brian talks about the importance of numbers, as he helps a friend sell their business.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVvx94FJwTE

Transcription

Why do the numbers matter in business?

Hi I'm Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

If you own a business, if you run a business, if you are the main person in charge, one of the toughest things to deal with for most people that get into business is keeping track of the numbers.

I'm working with a friend selling her business. And I've worked at purchasing businesses before.

The most common issue that I've seen over and over and over again with business owners, especially ones that are looking to sell, is that they did not keep close enough track of the numbers.

Most of the time, I would say it's not like just a little bit not keeping track, they really did not keep a track of the numbers. They're gonna have a very specific situation of business, I was looking at purchasing here locally.

We were looking at the back end of her business, she can pretty precisely detail income coming into the business about how much money she's making on each different sector of the business. She even knew how much money she'd be able to make off of other things that she had done in the past or that she knows other people that have done.

If we added these on, you'd make this much more money from the business. She could kind of guesstimate slightly what the expenses were, but could not give me a number by number, how much it would cost. Even a general estimate from month to month or year to year of how much it costs, expenses-wise.

So she had the end really figured out. She couldn't calculate the out. And I think it was a lot of personal issues that she was going through at the time that she didn't feel like she had the bandwidth to be able to sit there and really crunch the numbers she was really looking for, for a quick sale.

I think because of that she wasn't able to do it. But because of that, also, I wasn't able to move forward because I was bringing in other investors, I wasn't looking to put it all down myself, I was looking to bring in other investors to help make it happen.

So that was a very interesting dilemma. I had seen it a little bit with business owners before but now I see it over and over and over again, especially if you're a solopreneur.

It's your baby and you're the main one in charge, it's really easy to smudge numbers here and there when you've got access to the till when you're doing any form of cash business whatsoever. You can just take that money and go home without much of a trail that temptations too high for most people, most people are going to do it, they're going to not be all that clear cut on their taxes.

You know, they'll make up the numbers that look reasonable. They're able to skate by on that.

Over time, though, here's the real problem, is when you're ever looking to sell your business, it's really tough, you really should know those numbers while you're running your business. But if you're making enough money, and you don't feel like you're spending too much money, then you're going to keep going.

Even though a little adjustment here and there can make a big difference. I mean, you could be making twice as much money just by cutting an expense here, making sure this money goes here instead of here, making sure your money is coming back in the right way that can make all the difference in the world to you initially.

When it comes to how humans function, have things really changed over the ages?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR3vRmaI-G4

Transcription

Humans don't change.

Hi I'm Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

Today I want to talk about a principle that is fundamental to really all businesses and specifically to business communications, business marketing. It has to do with the idea that people app on a very concrete foundational level doesn't actually change.

They function the same way they did 100 years ago, 1,000 years ago, and 5,000 years before that, or however long humans have been walking around.

They really, really, really don't change.

They are political philosophies based on the concept of changing human nature but humans don't really change, they function the same way. In the end it doesn't matter what your culture is, it doesn't matter what time period you're living in.

That's why I love old books because all books prove this.

If you study Shakespeare, if you study any of the old classics, you realize, that people are talking about the same things they were talking about a long time ago.

They're dealing with all the same conflicts and all the same garbage that we deal with today. If you look at the wars that are happening around the world, right now, it's the same reasons and possibilities that happened for all the other wars.

I mean, it's all the same stuff, it's the same thing, going over and over again, it's like that, you know, someone said that history doesn't repeat itself. But it rhymes a lot, you know, it's very, very, very similar.

It's because people fundamentally do not change.

Now, this doesn't mean that things won't change within your business.

It doesn't mean that one technology that you use today, is going to be available tomorrow and that people will relate to it the same way. There are cultural things that always change, that stuff is always changing. But fundamentally, people are the same.

Fundamentally, people have things they want and you got to find a way to show them how to get it.

I mean, one way or the other, whatever it is, I don't care if you have a business or if you're running an organization, or if you're writing a charity, or what have you.

If you're looking to do something you have something you want and the way for you to get what you want is to help other people get what they want.

You say, Well, what about a charity, but that's not really the same thing. You're asking for money to do what you want, yeah, but you're offering something in return, you're offering. If nothing else you're offering the feeling that comes from providing help to that specific charity.

If you don't think that's important, you don't know people, because it is important, because the charities that raised the most amount of money are the ones that are able to communicate clearly the feeling, or any other result that the person is going to get from donating or donating more than they did before.

But once again, this has to do with business also. People are always the same, all you got to do is make yourself a student of human nature, make yourself a student of behavioral psychology.

That's why you can read old books that they still apply.

That's why I talk about all these old books, you know, the Think and Grow Rich, the How to Win Friends and Influence People,

The value of working while being uncomfortable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nri2SnnqmkQ

Transcription

Stuck, comfort, corollary.

Hi I'm Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

I love talking about the psychology behind what makes us do things or not do things because it seems to be a big piece of my life up until now. It seems to also be a big piece of other people's lives that I work with.

I'm a Business investor, I work with a lot of different types of businesses.

Over time I both look into purchasing businesses and also come in as a partial investor. I work on situations of equity a lot of times, and this is a thing I run into over and over and over again with business owners.

Most business owners that are either looking to sell their business or are looking to take their business to the next level, so to speak, break it free from where it's at.

It's because of this concept of they're stuck and if you feel like you're stuck at any point, I'm going to bring up something that always and I haven't found. I have not found an exception to this quite yet.

If you're stuck in your business, you can't get it to grow any further. You can't get it, you can't feel like it's doing anything more for you.

If you're in that zone, you're also stuck so to speak, in comfort, or in the comfort zone.

You're comfortable, almost guaranteed.

So just give you an idea of how little graph here and I found this, this is part of being a packrat, I just found this in my office, I don't remember where it came from.

This is actually a Sharpie, but it's a mini Sharpie, I don't know, quite the use of having a mini Sharpie other than maybe putting it on your keychain. These people walk around with a big ball of keys and, and knickknacks.

I imagine this is what a person would use this for, I don't know if they still sell these things but this was the only Sharpie I could find. So probably gonna throw it away after this because it's not that not all that useful to me.

Here's the idea over time. If you're talking if we were to talk about comfort level. So as you get started, let's use business as an example.

This can happen anywhere but business is a great place to start. So if when you start your business, you're really uncomfortable and it takes really a long while to break free of to get any type of comfortability and then you start getting good at it, and you start feeling more and more comfortable.

Then you're and then pretty soon you're it's it gets really, really easy. And that's a good thing. That's kind of what you want, right?

That's what you want out of business. But here's the other thing that that occurs at the same time, is it's when you're the least comfortable, you also feel the least stuck because you've got nowhere else to go but up.

You're uncomfortable. And so if you were to take it the other way, when you're talking, when you're talking being stuck, and what will the opposite of stuck be kind of momentum. You're really at your own momentum, I can't think of another word to use right now. But you've got a movement going right here.

You and your idealism is at its highest, the more comfortable you get, the lower that gets. It's a strange thing. They're inversely related. So, comfort and, and a happy momentum.

They go against each other. And the more comfortable you get, the less momentum you get and somewhere down here you...

Is anyone truly self-reliant or a we all dependent on others, to some degree?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J335fllXXZ0

Transcription

The opposite of self-reliance.

Hi I'm Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

I believe we started in 2019. I started doing this show, excuse me, if I'm awful my dates just off the top of my head, I believe that was the date. That was the year.

We started talking about a lot of things, but I was coming from a perspective of…I was working with clients within the Self Reliance field. So people with products and services that allowed people to become more self-reliant.

These concepts of self-reliance kept coming up in conversation, and so forth. So I created a video that kind of had kind of took on a life of its own.

It's called Self Reliance is Fake. And it really caused quite a stir because it was kind of an inflammatory title. It was meant to be that way.

It's not that I very much believe in self-reliance. But the concept of self-reliance being that you are 100% completely reliant on yourself, is a fake idea. That a lot of people who have any type of aversion to the concept of self-reliance, that's usually what they get caught up on.

I started kind of dissecting that and talking about I had my head, my youngest son on my lap, he was just a baby. And we were talking about this idea.

Well, you can go back and watch that video, I want to kind of hit on the concept, even though I don't work exclusively within the self-reliance field, and certainly not as heavy as I was then. There is still, self-reliance runs through everything that I do in some way or fashion.

I found that there are not enough people discussing it in a productive manner. And one of the things they don't look at is they don't look at what's the opposite of self-reliance. The opposite of self-reliance is much scarier than the situation if we actually trained, let's say, we got, I don't know 10% of the population of the world to become more self-reliant, would that be a bad thing or a good thing?

I believe it'd be a good thing. Because a self-reliant person, it doesn't mean they're completely, you know, contained in a bubble, and they just do their own thing, it means that they can, as best as possible survive on their own.

There they have the, it's more of the attitude. That if it is to be it's up to me, that I'm going to take the responsibility, not the fault of everything, but the responsibility of doing what's necessary to feed myself to feed my family to feed, clothe shelter, and to do everything I can for my people.

First, before I go about helping everyone else or asking for anything from anybody else, that I do the best I can at what I do. That's, that's kind of in a very loose way, my concept of what self-reliance is, the opposite of self-reliance is dependence. Its absolute dependence on other people.

Now, we are all dependent on each other. Don't get me wrong, interdependency is his kind of life, that there's not really a way around it. None of us are really self-contained and really perfect in the way that we are.

We need each other. And when you study personalities, when you study coordination, when you study all these different elements, we noticed that all of us are really good at something, or we're really good at a wide range of things, but not as good as the people that are focusing on each of those things, if that makes sense.

Naturally, we have natural inclinations toward very specific areas.

What's so bad about G.I. Jane anyway?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt1m0K4uSWE

Transcription

Will Smith slap and your business?

Hi I'm Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

Okay, so at the Oscars, Will Smith slapped Chris Rock.

What does this have anything to do with business?

While we talk about business concepts here, this is one of the things we go through. So if you're not interested in business, this won't really interest you. But if you are, if you're a business owner, or you're an executive, you're somebody that runs the business, you're somebody in charge.

This is what you're going to want to think about when it comes to standing out and getting attention.

And I'll tell you that, I'm going to get into the details in a second. First, I wanted to let you know about my book, if you're not aware of it, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business.

9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business. This is a book all about how to stand out, completely stand out in your industry away from your competitors. Even if your competitor is Amazon.com, hence, Amazon-Proof, okay.

At times I've had to explain the title, it's not a great title. When you have to explain it that's what happens. But if you go purchase this book, it's a short read. Very good stuff.

There's different directions that could take you if there's something that you're really interested in, if any of these nine ways interests you, I give you other resources to be able to go to in places that I'm not necessarily making money off of.

So go check that out. You can also download a free copy if you just want to check it out AmazonProofBook.com.

Now, what is the lesson that we can learn from the Will Smith slap that can affect your business?

Here's what I take from it.

Number one, in a very short period of time after it occurred, the internet is swarming with memes.

Everything you could possibly think of I guess, it amazes me how quickly people can come up with things. And I think these people are more professional meme creators and so forth. I mean, if you created a meme, and it's a good one, and you want to post it, post it wherever, wherever you're watching this, I'd love to see a link to it.

Let me know, is this something you do on a regular basis or did this just inspire you?

I'm guessing that these people are really fast about this type of thing. It's something that can't be ignored. That's what's amazing about this when something it's pretty clear that it's real.

This isn't a fake thing. This is it stands out as being a real incident, where somebody walked on stage and slapped someone telling a personal joke at the Oscars.

This has never happened to my knowledge.

Yeah, there's been people that have been upset and people that have said things and bicker back and forth but never someone actually going right up and causing physical harm to somebody else, or at least attempting to.

Because of that, you can't ignore it.

Because the two people that were involved were at the Oscars, which everyone knows about. And the two people involved or two people that are extremely well known.

Will Smith, Chris Rock. These are very well-known actors.

Very, very well-known people in their craft, you can't ignore something like that.

Brian talks about the power of having a personality that people identify with your company.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNMKPd8GiYE

Transcription

Be something versus be someone.

Hi I'm Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

I had this quote from Coco Chanel. For those of you who can't see the screen, I'm going to put this out there, I'll read it for you.

"How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something, but to be someone." Coco Chanel.

Okay, so this is a very interesting idea because there's always this push to be something, to make something of yourself. And she's playing around with the terminology here because oftentimes, that will lead a person to want to be someone.

Being someone is basically the concept of being famous, or having some form of celebrity whatsoever.

So I talk about this in my book, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business.

I have a whole chapter, because one of the nine ways is be someone, or be somebody I think is how I put it in that one be somebody. It's chapter four.

You can get them by the way, you get a free copy at AmazonProofBook.com.

But what does that mean?

Because you could take it to the egotistical end of things, but I'm talking about a very practical, if not pragmatic way of looking at this in terms of if you're attempting to get something out there.

If you want attention, if you want to stand out for any reason, I don't mean you personally, but you want something done, maybe there's a cause that you're trying to push.

In most cases, I'm talking to business owners and executives who have a product or a service that they want to get out there. If that's you, then you're going to want to have a personality that can deliver it because nothing is more tangible.

Nothing's more sticky if I can use an online term, talking about web pages being sticky, and so forth. Nothing has stick, like a personality.

People either connect with a personality or they don't connect with a personality, but nothing beats it.

Yeah, you can have brands, you can have feelings attached to brands, you can have concepts and ideas attached to inanimate objects, colors, and all these other things that come along with logos and branding. But in the end, nothing beats a personality, nothing beats having someone that people can connect with.

So becoming someone, in my mind, is really a very important thing to do if you're looking to get out there and stand out, which is why I made a whole chapter about it.

I use examples of all the famous people out there who you know, for one reason or another who in some cases, they're famous just because they're famous. But that doesn't stop them from making money off the fact that they are someone, they are someone that everybody knows they are somebody that is known.

Grant Cardone says, it's not about who you know, it's who knows you.

That's the same way of saying a similar thing, even though I don't fully agree with that concept. But the idea is there, it's if you can get to be known, you can use that to your advantage and you can do just about anything from there.

So hopefully this is helpful to you. Like I said, go download a free copy of my book, AmazonProofBooks. com. That's all I got for tonight.

So it's a cool quote and something that you could go back and forth on and debate and I'd love to hear you...

Thoughts on setting proper expectations to your consumers on when to expect your content to go live.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hePvO9bxgMU

Transcription

Manage expectations in content marketing.

Hi I'm Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

We talk a lot about content marketing here.

Content marketing is that type of marketing where you're looking to get attention by providing some form of content.

It's very broad idea, right?

But it could be everything from social media, to newsletters to books to, you know, just just about anything, both online and offline.

If you're providing content, whether it be entertainment, or whether it be educational, you're providing content, and getting a marketing result back, right.

The reason why I wanted to talk about this expectations and content marketing is because the people that are watching, listening, reading your content, they are going to have expectations, and you're going to want to manage that.

You're going to want to give them an idea of what to expect of how often to expect it.

That's why every night, I'll say, you know, we'll see you tomorrow, because in general, I post these and I put out new episodes on a daily basis.

Now this mixes up once in a while and you can see going back that sometimes to get posted in one day, or we go a few days without posting. In general, it's every day, so I give them that expectation.

People know when to expect, but they also know what to expect because I give an idea of the type of things we talk about here, even if it's your first time.

By the way, if it is your first time. This is kind of a business conversation that we're having right now. It's kind of one way because just me here, sometimes we do an interview, sometimes we have a conversation with somebody else.

In the end, it's all about business. Business ownership, business management, if you are a either a business owner or an executive, you know, how do you go about handling those things?

And specifically, we're talking about content marketing today.

So how do you go about using this stuff for your business, and managing the expectation of your audience, like I just did with you is how it's done.

You have to know what you're doing, where you're going, how you're going to get there.

I don't talk about this thing directly in my book, but my books another form of content marketing, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business. It gives you very, very broad-based, but some very specific areas to on how to learn more about these broad-based strategies that you can use in your business.

So short book, it's really easy to read, you go go check it out at Amazon.com. You can even download a copy, if you want download a free copy, you can go to AmazonProofBook.com.

AmazonProofBook.com.

That's our sponsor just in case you're wondering, but if you're really talking about managing that the reason why this came up, I think I started talking about that and then I got distracted.

The reason why this came up is a friend of mine does vlogging on a regular basis.

Now his form of vlogging is not really content marketing. He's not specifically marketing anything he does this mainly on YouTube, where he does these kind of day in the life of vlogs that he puts out there.

He's been very,

Why consistent content marketing is a great tool to remind others that you and your services exist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8O2xCVUl_Tw

Transcription

Content marketing is a great reminder.

Hi I'm Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

I get this all the time. But the more active I am, the more out there I am and the more people I talk to, the more people I realize watch or listen to this show on a semi-regular basis.

So nobody listens to every episode.

I mean, that's pretty close to a given every once in a while, you may have someone that gets obsessed for a little while and they'll go through and they'll binge a whole bunch.

But for me, in my circumstances, I found that most people catch it every once in a while.

Because I'm available in so many different places, that makes it easy to do. And so I'll show up in their Facebook feed or LinkedIn, or YouTube or what have you.

If you're going to get into content marketing, you want to be in a whole lot of places, and you want to do it semi consistently.

You want to be there on a regular basis, you remind people you exist.

You remind people that you may do something that they're interested in finding out more about or your mind people that they need to call you up or to or send you an email.

There's such a value in that, it's unbelievable.

Every once in a while I'll hit on an episode, that's usually something off the wall. It's usually not something that people are searching for, or people are necessarily thinking directly about.

But then I'll have a whole bunch of people come back to me and say, I really liked that episode.

I had a couple of episodes last week that had that effect where I had people coming out of the blue, saying, "Boy, I really like what you said there. It reminded me I need to get back together with you and reminded me that we need to talk or whatever."

You might find yourself in that camp. If you're watching this, listen to this, and this isn't your first time. It's a reminder for you, it's a reminder of the things that we talk about on a regular basis.

Maybe me talking about content marketing, remind me about how you got to get that going for your business or your organization or what have you.

I'll be having a book that is specifically focused on content marketing, and whether it's really good for you or not, because it's not right for everybody, it takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of effort takes a lot of energy.

The real question is, is that going to pay off for you or not?

Well, another way you could find out is go check out this book, this is kind of the intro book, this is, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business.

I talk about it on every show but you can go get a copy over at Amazon.com or anywhere that you buy books. You can also download a free copy at AmazonProofBook.com.

That's how I am able to keep this thing going.

One is because I keep reminding people that I that I'm here that I'm available that we should talk, and also reminding people of my book over and over again.

If they have a copy that reminds them to go and read it. So all these old things help. It's all pieces of things that all add into overall marketing. But it adds to overall networking.

It's the concept if you're if you're wanting to be out there and b...

How Brian uses the Dan Sullivan question to help others envision success for their business.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHI42cg7Cp8

Transcription

Begin with the end in mind.

So you had to do the beginning and then you got to think of the end before you can do the beginning is. I'm Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

I'll explain, I'll explain.

So that this comes from two different situations. That just happened.

So yesterday, I sat down with Tom and Carissa, and talked with them about their project that they're looking at building out. And the same question comes up a lot when I'm working with people. This is a great exercise to do, if you have something that really seems bold, and something big that you're looking to do, and you can't really grasp what the next step is.

You may be scared about all the different ins and outs of what's around the corner with these tough things. Not that Tom and Carissa were, but it's very common to have a whole bunch of excitement over something new, but at the same time be kind of lost as to what the next step is.

I always take people the same direction with this. And it was something that was drilled into me when I was younger, even though I didn't appreciate it till many years later, from a lot of the mentors that I've had through the years.

The whole idea is you got to forecast yourself, you got to put yourself into the future. And you have to end it at that my favorite way of saying it, it's a thing called the Dan Sullivan question.

So whatever the situation is, in most cases, you can usually say like a year, Dan Sullivan, I think uses three years because it's an off the wall number and it really causes a person to think.

But depending on what you're talking about how big a change you're looking to do, or how big a project you're looking to take on, or what have you. The best thing to do is to say, if we were sitting here a year from now, and I do this on all my podcasts, you can hear on all the interviews that I do on my other my two other podcasts offthegridbiz.com and GrantsPassVip.com.

If we were to sit here together to 12 months from now, we're looking back over the past year, what would have had to have happened for you to feel happy with your progress both personally and professionally.

That's the simplest way of saying Dan Sullivan has a little bit more ins and outs to it. But that that's the main concept, future cast, what would have had to have happened. And that is where you need to go.

What constitutes and if you if they already have an idea of a project, they're working on it even better because then the real question is the same question I had for Tom Carissa.

It's that what would what would make this a success?

What can we pinpoint what would absolutely make this a success?

It was something they had not thought about. And this is not uncommon. It's not uncommon to not think about it. Because you get so wrapped up and excited with the idea of doing something new, that it's real common to set aside the fact that where are we where are we going to be in the future?

And what what why are we doing it?

What what's the point?

And there's a point to everything, but sometimes there's more than one point. Especially if you have two people working on the same project, one person's point may not be the other person's point.

If you have multiple people,